Life of Jesus - Week 8

Matthew 6:1 NIV

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

Now this sounds simple - don’t let people know what you do, and you’ll be fine.

But it’s....not that simple. See, last chapter, we talked about how God is concerned about more than people just ticking boxes.

Jesus goes through 3 pretty simple spiritual acts, and teaches us some deep truths about God. They are giving, praying, and fasting.

They all sound pretty much the same how Jesus teaches it, so we’ll just highlight one.

Matthew 6:2–4 NIV

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Here’s a truth:

When we look for rewards HERE, we miss God’s reward

This word ‘justification’ means ‘the action of showing something right or reasonable’.

Luke 18:9–14 NIV

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

The pharisee had it all going for himself. He practiced spiritual disciplines, he tithed. He was a pharisee so he was well trained.

The tax collection had it all against him. He worked a hated profession, full of crooks and thieves. He realistically didn’t have any of the spiritual outside indicators the pharisee did.

So what was the difference between these two?

The pharisee was there to show himself and others that he was justified by what he did.

Luke explains, Jesus told this parable against people who were ‘confident in their own righteousness’.

The pharisee wasn’t even asking God for anything. He was just reminding God - hey, God, just in case you forgot - I’m awesome.

The tax collector was there to ask forgiveness from the only person in the universe that was able to provide, real, true, justification and forgiveness

he didn’t even feel justified enough to look at God, let alone brag to God about himself.

What’s the difference between the two? Their heart approach to God.

And jesus shows us god’s priority - he says, God pulls down those people who seek put themselves on pedestals, and he lifts up those people who come to him with humility.

AKA:

God’s judgments and rewards are based on our hearts

Proverbs 21:2 NIV

A person may think their own ways are right, but the Lord weighs the heart.

This is true whatever we are doing.

The pharisee was tithing and fasting - and Jesus says, God’s priority is to pull that person off their pedestal and humble them. We’d pat that guy on the back.

There’s not an action we can do on earth that if we do it with the wrong motives, Jesus will say, yknow, it’s OK. At least you did the right thing. Even if it was for the wrong reasons.

The heart is always the determining factor. Our motives always matter.

It’s a scary thing to recognize that we could look at a person who looks like they’re ticking all the boxes, and God could look at that person, and say, something’s off heart wise. That person needs some humbling.

Whenever we try to approach God, or do something for God - Jesus is going to ask two questions:

First-

What are our motives?

Jesus looks at the contents of your heart more than the work of your hands.

The pharisees- whether they gave, or prayed, or fasted, or anything else, their motives were ‘I’m doing it so other people can see me do it and recognize how holy I am’.

Why is that sort of recognition from others so important to us?

Because it feeds a need.

Maybe we need to feel righteous by our actions.

maybe we need to feel better than other people.

Maybe we just need praise from others to feel like we’re doing the right thing, because we’re not sure otherwise.

Whenever we do ANYTHING, we need to take a sharp look at ourselves and say, ‘Why am I doing this? What are my motives?’

And whenever we start examining our motives, we see a second question come out:

Who or what are we looking to for fulfillment?

This is the harder question. But soul searching is essential - because it’s our inner life that Jesus is going to look at.

1 Thessalonians 2:4 (NIV)

We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts.

This verse always caught me funny, until I realized what it’s about. This isn’t ‘forget what people think’. This is, ‘i’m not doing this because I need people to be pleased with me. I need GOD to be pleased with me’.

The pharisees - they settled for fulfillment from recognition and respect. They NEEDED people to see and praise what they were doing. They NEEDED to feel better than other people. And Jesus says - they already got their reward from those people.

Jesus doesn’t actually care if we pray in public or not (he prayed in public many times) or if people know when he gives out money (he instructed peter to pay both his temple tax and peter’s with the coin from the fish’s mouth). What he cares about is where we look for fulfillment.

How can we fix that?

Work against that need for something other than God

And this is where Jesus’ teaching really hits home.

And notice - he doesn’t say stop the good things. Bad heart motives can corrupt good actions, but that doesn’t make the actions themselves bad. Jesus cuts right to the heart of the issue (PUN INTENDED) to solve the real problem.

Sometimes it might take a more radical action like cutting out something that isn’t the problem. (People get challenged to give up something permanently)

If you need to be recognized by men when you give - do it so secretly that your left hand doesn’t even know what your right is doing.

If you need people to see you pray and confirm it - pray in secret instead.

If you need people to see you and clap you on the back for spiritual disciplines - keep them between yourselves and God.

In any way that you find yourself saying, I need something from other people - take that same need, and just point it back at God. and put yourself in a place where God is the only one that even knows to fill that need.

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Jesus in matthew 6 also warns us about the twofold worries of ‘wealth’ and ‘want’ - too much and not enough

the proper place of wealth is further the gospel of the kingdom and to take care of people

Jesus tells us not to worry but trust God, because it’s God’s pattern to take care of people who trust him.

It’s the world’s pattern to run around and fret over all the things we need.

Trusting God changes us so much that we don’t even worry about tomorrow

We’re called to meet today’s problems with today’s strength.

Matthew 5 was about ‘you got it wrong’. Matthew 6 is about ‘you’re not doing enough in terms of what God is asking for’.

Not a message of ‘you aren’t good enough’, but a message of ‘by your own strength, you’re ticking the wrong boxes’.

Matthew 6 calls us out on our motives. And invites us to a life where God works on our motives, instead of simply our outward behaviour.

‘Righteousness from God is an inside-out process’

Again, we pull a pharisees on this one. And we settle for ‘don’t pursue these specific motives and you’re fine.’ But is God’s view of the necessity of our motives a ‘don’t’? What is God’s ‘do’ with our motives?

our motives can drive us two different ways

It can drive us TOWARDS action (we fast so that people at church see us do it!) or inaction (we refuse to fast because we don’t want to appear legalistic before other people)

Whose opinion is it that should matter about our behaviour?

Matthew 6 split into 3 categories - public religious life, personal interior life, interpersonal relational life

Public religious life is essential to developing our spirituality - we are christians in community

Those who do things for public recognition ‘have no reward from your father in heaven’ (v1)

This word, misthos, indicates a payment of wages. It is a recognition and reward from God for the ‘praiseworthy moral quality’ of the disciples acts of righteousness

The OT establishes over and over again that God rewards good behaviour and punishes bad behaviour (Deut 28)

Jesus reminds his disciples that motive is more important than simple activity

Religious activities, without proper motives, are of no spiritual value to the performer and receive no commendation from God

Jesus spoke about 3 important activities of the jewish faith - giving to the needy, praying, and fasting

Jesus uses the word hypocrites. The original greek for this was a stage actor who put on various masks to play different roles

Praying

Pious jews were called to pray multiple times a day. And many times this could very well have you be out in public. But some people could make a pretentious display of it.

Likewise, God wasn’t like the pagan gods, that was approached through ritual prayer and constant repetition.

Two kinds of sides - people who attempted to sway public opinion to their side, and people who attempted to sway God to their side

Fasting

The jews were regularly commanded to fast. But some could make a show of it and unduly demonstrate their ‘suffering’ to others, to receive praise from men

To the jews, fasting was a somber affair. To Jesus, the command he gives (to wash your face and put oil on your head) harken back to Eccl 9:7-8, a recommendation to show joy in life while fasting

Treasures in heaven

Storing up treasures could be a way to provide for ourselves, to make ourselves feel safe, etc

it can also be a way to shortcut the process of feeling ‘blessed’ by God

Storing up our treasures in heaven could be a way to affect our motivations

‘where your treasure is - there your heart will be also’

The Lord’s Prayer

Directed the disciples to the primacy of God

The beginning is a call back to the OT 10 commandments, first 3 - No other gods, no idols, no misusing the name

Also directed the disciples towards dependence on God rather than provided items

The nature of being a disciple was serving the will of God, not our own. even Jesus prayed - not my will but yours be done

Forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors

This sentiment was commonly found in judaism - ‘forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, then your sins will be pardoned when you pray (Sir 28:2)